This is a forum where personal investing is being discussed animatedly. In times of unprecedented volatility and stock market crash such as these, you can’t reasonably expect this topic about timing (and trading) the market not to crop up. The discussion remains largely confined to this thread (and a few other posts) though. You can think of as a controlled outlet, if you will 
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Just a heads up that this is coming up tomorrow, so that everyone can tak advantage of the dip.
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Went all in with my fun money on SPY put options expiring in mid April / May today. Although it’s not the boglehead approach, I think today was the day to cash out (if you weren’t all cash already) with passive index funds. Do you really think we reached the bottom when looking at how the US is handling this?
I know that this is basically gambling (my net worth is stored in cash since Feb except for the fun money portion which is up 500% due to put options already) but I’m happy with taking the gamble of missed gains if I can get a way bigger discount in the coming weeks / months on VTI / VT
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I will never cash out, maybe go a little bit in cash or rebalance a bit towards TLT. Once I go all in cash the mental barrier would be extremely high for me to invest again. And what do you do when it goes up today again by 5%, wait for tomorrow when the big crash comes? What do you do when it drops by 5%, wait for tomorrow when it will drop by 10%?
Not to speak that most of the losses will be equalized by days like last Tue, We. If you miss those, you miss a big part of the recovery. Ah and yes I am 80% confident it will continue to drop and the bottom has not reached yet.
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And what if they invent symptomatic drug this week? What you gonna do if markets will gain 30% in a day?
Yes I think we have. The real question to ask if the economy will be back to at least 75% of normal in a year or so. I’m betting all of it that it will. boosted by record low interest rates and cheap commodities.
I took profits from my speculative positions yesterday and intend to reinvest some of them today into index funds today or some day next week).
I long wanted to tip my toes in options, but the tax rules say it’s only allowed to hedge your portfolio positions. As I understad, you just bought options without having the underlying securities. Are you not affraid of the taxman asking questions?
I think we haven’t, but I would not cash out. Because @glina might be right that we might see quick recession in Q2-Q3, and then quick recovery in Q4 and Q1 2021. I think it’s more probable there’s going to be a prolonged recession (cars sales is estimated -30% this year, half of restaurant can bankrupt, etc), but who knows how will this turn? It really depends on how fast the virus will peak, how fast the governments will build the infrastructure for massive testing (to contain the virus), how fast we will get the drug to treat symptoms of severe cases (preventing health care systems overwhelming) and thus how fast we will get back to work and consume goods and services. Easy money and cheap commodities won’t help if everybody stays at home for a year and the virus will turn everywhere as bad as it did in Italy.
PS. Spain has joined yesterday Italy in the club where 600-700 people die each day due to corona. We will see who’s next - I think US, France, Netherlands, Belgium, UK, Sweden and Switzerland are next. After them rest of the Europe and rest of the world.
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All of it is true and is also common wisdom. Why do you think the market doesn’t have this priced in?
This is probably true for part of institutional investors, but I also think market panics and reacts based on emotions during a crisis. Just like everyone else.
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Someone woke up from the wrong side of the bed… 
Maybe US and France might reach that numbers of deaths, but not the others. Maybe India will pop up in the list? I hope not though.
You keep fearmongering. This statement is unfounded. Currently the worst tempo can be observed in the USA, Spain is number 2. Both will have it worse than Italy. In Italy we see consistent flattening of the death curve. We can see that maybe 10’000-20’000 people will die in total, which is a little compared to their annual death toll. All other countries should have less deaths than Italy. In Switzerland the death curve is much flatter, maybe we don’t even exceed 1’000?
Yes, but the curves are getting flatter due to government measures and self-isolation of 1/3 of the humanity. Otherwise, they would sky rocket, and they will once governments will lift some of the constraints.
The problem is that not all nations are counting the number of dead in the same way. It is a huge difference to tag someone dead because of coronavirus or dead and positive for coronavirus. Sometimes I also put my tinfoil on and think that Italy is pushing these numbers just to have some economic advantages from EU…(I know is a stupid theory, don’t worry I am a rational man)
Or perhaps is just because Italy has a shit Health System. Look at what is happening in Germany or here in Switzerland, the numbers are much more realistic for this kind of sickness.
I have said many times, I am very optimistic it will be gone in couple of months; and then I am very curious to see the final numbers and how they will compare with previous years numbers, I am sure this “pandemic” will be laughable.
A part from that, since US joined the party later, the possibility to be better prepared or that an helpful drug can be discovered (or re-discovered) is very high.
FYI Italy, France and Spain currently don’t count deaths outside of hospitals. The real numbers will be much higher (in all those countries we’ve heard of retirement homes where a dozen of people have died).
At least for France I’d expect the actual number to be a multiple of the current one, and the final one likely much higher than the 2004 heat wave (15k deaths for France).
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I’ve read yesterday JAMA article that tried to explain high CFR in Italy (7.7%) and they were suggesting three factors - 1/4 of Italians are 65+, too many deaths classified as covid deaths (even though they’re already dying e.g. from cancer), and too little tests of mild cases. On the other hand, many severe cases haven’t died yet and many people died outside of hospitals. It’s hard to estimate real CFR, it will takes months to figure out how deadly corona really is.
This pandemic is already not laughable. Especially that you might lose your parents/grandparents in coming months.
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I don’t know if you know “Game of thrones” but my nickname says everything
We will (or have already) all lose someone sometime. If parents / grandparents die they will die AND be positive to coronavirus, they will not die BECAUSE of the coronavirus.
Until February surely a lot of risk people died because they were weak and they got a flu, and the complications of the flu brought them to die…why until february was ok to die because of flu and now is not ok to die because of coronavirus???
Because corona spreads much faster and is at least 10 times more deadly than flu (1% vs 0.1%). With hospitals overwhelmed it’s becoming 50 to 100 times more deadly. Without hospitals getting overcrowded CFR is most likely about 1.5-2.5%
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This is bullshit, nobody died directly because of coronavirus, but it doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous. Most people 50+ have chronic diseases and corona will aggravate their condition so that they can die - and without corona they could live 10-20-30 more years.
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I have no clue what it means but probably nothing to be proud of.
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